Smoke (26 page)

Immy, who had taken her purse with her, was glad to see the van intact, except for some dings where debris had hit it. Ralph’s car had lost the front passenger window, but was otherwise unscathed. Immy wondered how bulletproof that car must be.

They all looked around, assessing the damage. A huge pecan tree lay across the front yard, its roots reaching upwards, but Amy JoBeth’s house still stood, looking unharmed, roof and all.

Amy JoBeth broke from their grasp and ran around the house. Ralph and Immy trailed after. Immy wanted to close her eyes, but couldn’t resist looking.

The pigs trotted to the fence and grunted at Amy JoBeth. She poked a forefinger at the pens, counting. “They’re all here!” she shouted, then she fell backward.

Ralph caught her before she hit the ground and Immy helped him haul her to her back porch steps.

This, thought Immy, is the faintingest family.

* * *

“You can’t arrest her when she just fainted,” Immy exclaimed.

“I can. That’s exactly what I’m doing,” said Ralph, turning back to Amy JoBeth. “You’re under arrest for obstructing justice in the murder of Rusty Bucket.”

“I didn’t do it.” Amy JoBeth was near tears.

“We have witnesses testifying that you planted evidence leading to a false arrest.”

He read the Miranda warning and gestured for Amy JoBeth to accompany him to the police car.

It didn’t sound like he was going to take any guff so Immy kept her mouth shut.

“I’ll be back later for your truck, Amy JoBeth,” said Ralph. “I have a warrant to impound it.”

“I never should have loaned it to Vern,” muttered Amy JoBeth.

This was awful, thought Immy. Her client had now been arrested twice. Some PI she was.

“Immy.” Amy JoBeth twisted her head to see around Ralph, walking behind her. “Can you make sure the pigs are fed?”

“Um....”

“They get the pig chow that’s in the shed.”

Immy thought she should be able to find that. “How often? How much?”

“Twice a day.”

Ralph had the back door open and tugged Amy JoBeth toward it.

“Five of those big scoops from the bag in the shed,” Amy JoBeth continued, ducking to get into the car. “Put it in the big trough. And there’s apples and carrots in my fridge. They like those, too.”

Ralph slammed the door before Immy could ask Amy JoBeth how she was supposed to get into her house. But the pigs could probably go without fruits and vegetables for a few days. Immy hoped her client wouldn’t be in stir longer than that.

As she watched the cop car disappear down the road, Immy had another thought. Louise had surely fed her daughter’s pigs when she was in jail before. Why had she asked Immy this time? Maybe because Immy was handy. Or maybe there’d been a falling-out?

Maybe Immy should get hold of Louise and let her know that her daughter was in jail again. That was the least she could do, considering she’d failed at finding the killer.

“Okay, Immy, think,” she told herself aloud. Evidence leading to a false arrest. Well, the evidence that led to Vern’s arrest was the confetti. If it was planted, who else but Amy JoBeth would have planted it? And those two were no longer a lovey-dovey couple. Maybe Vern turned against Amy JoBeth because she broke up with him, or because she fingered him.

But Immy knew she broke up with him because he was a killer. So she wasn’t one. Was she?

Ralph was impounding Amy JoBeth’s white truck. Something tickled the back of her brain. A white truck. Hadn’t Wanda, the front desk gal at Cowtail’s Finest, seen Vern arrive in a light-colored truck? His own was a dark color, usually so dirty you could hardly tell what color it was supposed to be. Amy JoBeth kept her white one spotless. But she’d loaned it to Vern. If a dead Poppy had been transported in it, Immy bet it wouldn’t be exactly spotless. And wouldn’t Amy JoBeth have to know he’d done that?

The truth hit Immy like a lead tumbleweed.

She sank to the damp grass. She couldn’t solve her way out of a pig feed sack. She was no Detective. She wasn’t even a detective with a lower case D. She was a file clerk. And her client was probably guilty.

Immy wasn’t sure how much time passed, but she looked up as the sun broke through the clouds, which were abandoning the sky. Her hair fell into her face when she bowed her head. A light breeze, stirring her hair, made her realize her cheeks were wet with tears. She eyed the storm shelter.

Maybe she should retreat from life, like Amy JoBeth did. People would get all concerned about her. They would come and try to talk her into leaving the hole in the ground. They would bring her food. Drew would climb into her lap and put her hands around Immy’s neck, give her a wet kiss. Hortense would bring—-no, Hortense would probably not go down those steep steps. But she would send comfort food down with Drew.

Hortense would be so disappointed, though. Maybe she wouldn’t even show up. A daughter of hers, in a tornado shelter with depression—the very idea. She would remind Immy that she had a loving family, and a job to go to next week. And that she had gotten a very high score on her last test for the PI course.

Immy pushed herself to her feet and drove home to study for next Friday’s test.

* * *

Ralph had the gall to show up for supper that night. After they ate, Immy talked him into their usual hand-in-hand walk at dusk. Immy thought Ralph seemed reluctant to be alone with her. He must suspect, Immy thought, that she would pump him.

When they were well away from the trailer, Immy asked why he arrested Amy JoBeth.

“Don’t start in on me, Immy,” he said. “You know I can’t tell you anything.”

“But she’s my client.”

“Your what? You suddenly have a law degree?” His hand tightened on hers.

“No, I’m investigating on her behalf. She asked me to.”

“She asked you to find out who killed her pig.”

Immy kicked at a rock in the road.

“Right? And you got the bullets matched up.” He gave her hand a squeeze. “Good job there.”

“But you said that didn’t prove anything.” Was Ralph patronizing her?

“It proved which gun was used.”

He was. “And there’s no proof of who fired the gun. Except that Sonny Squire practically admitted it to me. And you won’t take my word for it.”

“But you did get that part figured out.”

“Oh yes. Little Immy can figure out stuff.” She stuck out her tongue at him. “Stuff that doesn’t mean anything. Stuff that doesn’t prove anything.” She flung his hand away and headed toward home.

“Immy, please.”

She kept walking.

“I could maybe tell you a few things,” he called.

She turned around and came back. They were in front of Mrs. Wilson’s house. Her chained Rottweiler got to its feet and took a few steps in their direction, a low growl arising from deep within his broad chest.

“Let’s go someplace else,” said Ralph.

They walked across Saltlick to the park. Immy hadn’t been there after dark in years. It was usually a teen-age hangout this time of night, but none were here. The Fourth was officially over, this being the Tuesday after. The teens must have other things to do tonight, Immy thought.

Ralph sat on a picnic table under the shelter and put his boots on the bench. Immy took a seat beside his feet.

“What can you tell me?” she asked.

“Let me think.”

“Well, what did you arrest Amy JoBeth for? She’ll tell me if I go see her.” She leaned against his leg.

“True.” Ralph ran his hand over his jaw. His slight stubble raised a scratchy sound. “Vern decided to talk. He said he used her truck to transport Poppy to the motel.”

“I knew it!”

“And he says Amy JoBeth planted the pink confetti on him and hid the drugs in her shelter.”

“And you believe him?” She laid her head on his thick, hard thigh.

“Not entirely. If it weren’t for the truck, I’d say he’s lying all the way.”

“Yeah, you figure she must have known he was using her truck to transport bodies.”

“How could she not?” Ralph absently stroked Immy’s hair.

“Well, she’s been unwell for awhile now. Maybe she’s not too perceptive.” Immy looked up at his face.

Ralph narrowed his eyes. He was considering what she said.

“He could have just said he wanted to borrow it,” Immy said. “She wouldn’t necessarily know he was going to carry a dead body around in it.” Immy did not want Amy JoBeth to be a murderer, or even an abettor. “Ralph, she was truly upset when he told her he murdered two people. She wants nothing more to do with him.”

“But we have to look at the truck and consider what that means. If it turns out her truck has traces of anything from transporting Poppy, well....”

Her scalp was beginning to tingle from Ralph’s touch. “This is really going to set her back, if that happens.”

“Oh, hell, Immy, everything sets that woman back.”

The locust clatter was louder at the playground than on the streets. Probably because the park was ringed with live oak trees, Immy thought. The first few stars were beginning to poke through the sky’s violet curtain, and the moon hung low in the east tonight.

Immy wished life weren’t so hard for Amy JoBeth. She couldn’t imagine what was going to happen if it turned out her truck had helped Vern carry out his unspeakable act.

“What about Sonny?” she asked. “Vern couldn’t have gotten that bull to kill him. He’s still locked up. You haven’t let him out, have you?”

“No. No, we still think he’s good for Rusty and Poppy.”

“But how does Sonny’s death fit in?”

“You got me.”

Ralph bent down and lifted Immy’s head up for a long, lingering kiss.

Chapter 25

On their way to the trailer, Immy had a sudden thought. She was sure Amy JoBeth didn’t kill Rusty or Poppy. But what about Sonny? Could she have killed him? What about those clippings? What about Louise intimating that Sonny had swindled them out of their land, caused her husband’s suicide? Maybe Amy JoBeth had decided to avenge the family honor. After all, she had been obsessed enough about the history to collect those clippings. She probably even stole the originals from the newspaper morgue.

After Ralph left, Immy realized she hadn’t yet called Louise to let her know Amy JoBeth had been taken in again. She got her cell phone and took it into the front yard to call Louise, not wanting Drew to be exposed to their discussion, in case she had to say anything that tender young ears shouldn’t hear.

Louise answered right away.

“Immy? What’s going on? I can’t find Amy JoBeth anywhere.”

“She was arrested this morning. That’s what I’m calling to tell you.”

“Again? What for now? She hasn’t done a thing.”

“I know. But the police got some new testimony.”

“What about?” That high decibel shriek reached an almost unbearable pitch. Immy held the phone away from her ear.

“I think the main thing is her truck.”

“Her truck? That has nothing to do with Sonny’s death.”

Sonny’s death? Why would she think that? “No, it’s linked to Poppy’s death.”

“What?”

Immy moved the phone even farther from her battered eardrum. “Did Amy JoBeth have something to do with Sonny? Because of the family history? Did she drug him?”

Louise lowered her voice. “Immy, I need you to come to Amy JoBeth’s place. There’s something I have to show you.”

“What is it?”

“I can’t tell you on the phone. It’s urgent.”

Should she trust a woman who lied about being a librarian? “I don’t think I can come right now.”

“This can’t wait. I need you to do something for Amy JoBeth.”

Immy remembered that she hadn’t fed the pigs. “Maybe I can stop by for a few minutes. Are the pigs fed?”

“Good. I’ll be waiting.”

This was kind of strange. But, if she could do something for Amy JoBeth.... after all, the woman was her client, and Immy had failed her so far.

She ran into the house to get her purse and car keys and told Hortense she was going to feed the pigs at the pig farm and would be right back.

Hortense was deep into a drama and waved goodbye without looking up. Drew was probably in the bedroom, deep into Barbies that were pretending to be rodeo queens.

Darkness was complete by the time Immy reached Amy’s Swine. Her headlights picked up the fallen tree and swept across the yard as she turned the van around so it would be ready to go when she left. She didn’t see Louise anywhere. Her old brown Buick was parked up close to the house, though. Maybe she was inside.

Immy cut her engine. Leaving her purse on the seat, she got out and headed around the house to the pig’s enclosure to give them five scoops of chow. She would talk to Louise after she fed the cute little porkers. Well, not so little, but very cute.

It was dark behind the house. Come to think of it, it was dark inside the house, too. Where was Louise? Immy made her way to the shed in the pig’s enclosure and patted around the vicinity of the door to find the latch. Luckily, there was a light switch right inside the door.

She flinched at the bright light after the darkness outside, but found a huge sack labeled “Pig Chow” beside the door. A scoop was conveniently located on the floor next to it. Now to find the trough. The open door of the shed lent enough light to show her where it was, not far away. She made four trips to the trough, carefully holding the full scoop level so she wouldn’t spill the food in the dirt. Although the pigs could probably get it from there, she thought.

On her return to the shed to get the fifth scoop, she found Louise.

Immy had trouble processing what she was seeing. Louise, the non-librarian mother of Amy JoBeth, the timid and depressed pig farmer, stood in the doorway of the shed with a mean look in her eye. And a shotgun aimed at Immy’s chest.

Immy let the scoop fall to the ground.

“Louise? It’s me, Immy.”

“Yes, it is, isn’t it? Immy, first class snoop and busybody. So you figured everything out, didn’t you?” Louise was dressed cowgirl style, despite the fact she didn’t have a ranch, or cattle anymore. She wore a denim jacket and boots, too warm for the July weather. Immy wondered if she was wearing a jacket so that she could conceal something in the pockets. One of them bulged like it contained something.